They had met. They had shaken hands. He had held her hand, so cool and smooth. His plan had worked. He wasn’t used to that. He wasn’t used to wanting something and it actually coming true. He had never believed in luck because then he would have had to face the fact that he didn’t have any. But maybe-just maybe-things were changing.
And he hadn’t blown it. He didn’t think he had sounded too stupid. He didn’t always get what she was saying, but he’d made her laugh-well, once anyway. It hadn’t been so hard. It would be easier next time. He wasn’t exactly sure how this amazing thing called “next time” was going to come around. He’d have to think about that.
He walked through the rest of his workday in a kind of a daze. All he could think of was Mimi. Face-to-face, she was more beautiful than ever. Her eyes-the way she had looked at him! She seemed to like him, but it was more than that, and for one terrible moment he had thought she recognized him. But there was no way she could have seen him. No way. And now they’d met. And they would meet again. Somehow, though he couldn’t quite see how. What else could he break and then fix? He laughed out loud, alone in the store. But he was only kidding. He would never break anything of hers again.
For that one week Cramer was holding down two full-time jobs. He had to be at PDQ by 10:00 AM to open up and stay there right through until closing time. Because he was working the night shift at the plant, it didn’t make much sense to go home-took too much time and too much wear and tear on the car. But when he suggested that to Mavis, she had a shit fit.
“You’re going to strand me out here?”
“Well, what am I supposed to do?”
“It is my car, for Christ’s sake!”
He wanted to tell her that it wasn’t really her car anymore. It wasn’t just that he paid the insurance and the license and kept it topped up with gas. In the six years he’d been driving the Taurus, he’d replaced just about every damn part in the thing.
“So you’ll drive me into town in the morning?” he said. She didn’t answer. She wandered away, rubbing her hands together, and stared out the window.
“I could get to the plant if I’m in town. One of the guys on my crew could give me a lift, I guess.”
Still she didn’t answer. He had no idea what he would do about getting home from the plant at four in the morning if she took him up on his offer. Hell, maybe he’d just sleep in the back room at PDQ.
“Mom?”
She turned and gave him a sour look. “Do whatever you like,” she said, and went outside. Somehow he was the bad guy. But, then, what else was new?
They ended up coming to a compromise. If she needed the car, she’d drive him in and pick him up at five. Then he’d take her home and go to work. It was a lot of driving and a lot of wasted time, but she had things to do, she said. Things to do.
She had pretty well abandoned her art. And she had abandoned asking about the money. He was doing what he could, but he wasn’t going to keep saying to her every goddamned day how he would get her the money. She had to believe in him, the way he believed in her. And until the money was in his hands, he wasn’t going to make any promises he couldn’t keep. He owed her that much. Sometimes it seemed to Cramer that his mother’s life was a promise she couldn’t keep. Somebody had to do it for her.
He allowed himself to think that she was looking for work. Maybe that’s why she needed the car. He fantasized about coming home one day and her surprising him with the news. He fantasized about quitting one of his jobs. He fantasized about having a life! He’d never questioned his life, really. This was it-the one you got. You did the work. You looked after things. You picked up where you left off yesterday. End of story. But now- now! — he wanted something. He wanted something big-time. He wanted a new life. And he had done a bad thing to get that new life started. He hated himself for it. Hated the foolish games he had been playing lately and what it had brought him to. But then again those foolish games had brought him to Mimi.
When Mimi told him about the break-in, the look on her face was like a hard fist plowing into his stomach. He was dead afraid he was going to confess, right there, right then. He imagined the words spilling out of him, and it felt as if it took every muscle in his body not to break down and tell her. He couldn’t bear the thought of making her unhappy. But what he couldn’t bear even more was the thought of her being angry with him. He’d heard her talk to that guy on the phone. Seen her temper flare up, and he didn’t want that temper aimed his way. He would never give her a reason to turn on him like that. Never. So there would have to be this secret between them, and that was too bad, but it couldn’t be helped. He would just have to live with it. One more burden.
It was Wednesday morning that he got the call he’d been waiting for. It also just happened to be the first day of August and he noticed that-noticed that Day One of his new life was starting on the first day of the month.
He had to go right away. He locked up the store and put the little sign up on the door. BACK IN A FLASH, the sign read. And Cramer had to laugh. Back in a flash with the cash.
He called Mavis and told her to be home for dinner. He said he’d bring something. What did she want, KFC or a pizza? Chinese-whatever!
“What are you talking about?”
“It doesn’t matter,” he said. “Just choose.”
“What are we celebrating?”
“The first of the month.”
“Cramer, are you stoned?”
He was almost offended, but he thought he could hear just the tiniest bit of excitement in her voice, as if she had caught some of his own excitement.
“You have a fantastic day,” he said. It was something Hank Pretty said to customers, and it sounded like the exactly right thing to say. Then laughing, he hung up. He expected her to phone back, but she didn’t. So he got a deluxe pizza with pineapple and ham, because he knew that was her favorite.
She was there when he arrived, waiting at the door. He smiled and hoisted the extra-large-size pizza box high for her to see. She was standing just inside the screen door, and she didn’t open it even when he was standing right on the step. She looked odd-frightened.
“Mom? You okay?”
“I’m fine,” she said, staring at the box in his hands. “What’s going on, Cramer?”
He had hoped she might have set the table in anticipation of him bringing home takeout. Especially since he had to head off to the plant in an hour or so. He’d imagined on the way home that she might even pick some flowers and put them on the table the way she used to do sometimes when there was something to celebrate-any old thing. But the table was cluttered with mail and half-finished cups of coffee and a plate with toast crumbs on it that had been there for days.
Still, she seemed pleased with the pizza. So he set the table around the mess, and when they were finally sitting across from each other with their plates filled, he reached into his pocket and handed her a folded envelope.
“Here,” he said.
She took it from him gingerly, glancing suspiciously at the offering.
“What is this?”
“Open it,” he said.
She did, reluctantly, and he just about wanted to scream, he was that excited. But he held it in and watched as she took out five crisp, new one-hundred-dollar bills.
She stared down at the money, and Cramer waited breathlessly for her to respond. He wondered, after a bit, if she was crying, but when she finally raised her head, her eyes were dry and cold and hard.
“Where’d you get this?”
He had rehearsed this moment all day, and it sure hadn’t been like this.
“What do you mean, where did I get it?” he said.
“Hank’s away, isn’t he? Did you take this from the till?” Her eyes were large, troubled.
“Do you think I’d steal from Hank?”
“I don’t know what you’d do.”
“Jesus! What do you even care where I got it!” He was immediately angry at himself-at the irritation in his voice.
Her eyes skittered away from him. She looked haggard. He wondered suddenly if she was ill or something.
“Mom,” he said, his voice soft. “I got a bank loan, okay?”
She looked at him with surprise. “You did what?”
“I got a bank loan. Hank cosigned for me.” She looked down at the money sitting on the open palm of her right hand. He reached across the table and closed her hand around the money. She stared at her fist. “There’s a pretty good chance I’m going to get hired on full-time at the plant,” he said quietly, as if he was talking to a sick person. “That’ll mean a raise and benefits and all that kind of stuff. And so I thought, why wait? You need the money now and you’ve got it.”
She didn’t look up, and since the aroma of the pizza was driving him crazy, he launched in, with one eye on her waiting for the smile, the thank-you. He had no idea what was going on in her head. No idea whether she believed him or not, and he didn’t even really care at this point. She had managed to siphon just about every drop of joy out of the moment. It hadn’t been easy to lay his hands on that kind of money. He didn’t want much in return. But damn it all, she could at least acknowledge it.
And then she did in a most unexpected way. She started laughing. He looked at her and saw the smile on her face and started laughing as well. This was more like it. But he stopped laughing eventually and was well into his second slice of pizza before she stopped. And by then, he was really seriously beginning to wonder whether his mother was losing her mind.